


Love Can't Be More Than This

by The Ghosts (rcs)



Category: Ragnarok Online
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/The%20Ghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short look back at two old lovers, done for my favorite demandosaurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Can't Be More Than This

His first thought is the same as it is for every other new arrival; " _Y'just a kid._ " And it's invariably true, even though he's not as much of an old man as the rough hands and scars and heavy shoulders make him believe he is. But this one straddles the ravine between childhood and the next, limbs out of proportion but eyes still big and bright, bright even when those gangly arms are holding all their owner's possessions tight and the smell of cannon smoke is clinging to them.

It's while he's studying this kid, pokerfaced and silently wondering what can be done for him, that those bright eyes find his, catch him watching.

There's a beat and then those brown eyes smile like all those thoughts aren't a mystery, like they've been unraveled and laid out and he won't share the answer. It's smug as hell and Balthasar knows exactly what this kid'll be to him, letters blown out before him.

A pain in the _ass_.

\---

He makes picking on the full-grown errand boy his mission. It's something to do at first, something to pass the time between chores and training, but it quickly becomes a hobby. He likes the faces made at him when he sneaks wine and gets 'caught' making passes at the girls in the guild -- he times it for maximum reaction -- he likes the way the rogue's lips screw into a snarl and he likes the look of, "DON'T YOU EVEN DARE," when the girls or the wine get shepherded away. He even likes the way Balthasar yells after him, likes the sound.

But his _favorite_ is the way that even when the rogue is swarmed with cheerful, grubby children and the begrudgingly smiling teens, when he's showing them how to carve a toy from some scrap kindling, he'll find Kahl in the crowd and give him a lecture, a barked warning, and an invitation to join in with that one look.

He isn't certain _why_ he likes all these things. Is it the attention? Is it for the thrill? He has guesses and theories, but the concrete answer is just out of reach.

\---

The first time Kahl puts on his cowl, his battle colors, he knows he's not a child anymore, that he's left that lanky, awkward transition behind. He stands before that mirror in the barracks and he feels the change happen. The strange gosling he was is gone, replaced with a handsome adult, the kind women would cry over and men would lose sleep about. And in this moment the sense of occassion sweeps over him and Kahl becomes fixated on one thing: the person who has to see this newborn him, first, before all the others. His feet carry him into the early morning, out across the yard to the watchtower steps and up onto the wall. He's a blur for twelve-hundred steps.

Twelve-hundred-one leaves him in front of a dying watchfire and Balthasar, who looks at him like the world is coming down around them, he's never seen hide nor hair of him before sun-up. Purposefully, Kahl gestures to the new ensemble, to show how he's not cloaked in the child of yesterday, to his brand new self. And he waits for the reaction, something grander than his own because he _knew_ this was coming.

And the Stalker moves to stand, warm eyes studying him like they did on their first meeting. He gives a tired smile, putting a big, cool hand on Kahl's head, tousling his hair. "Looks good," he says.

What he's done in one gesture is unthinkable, _impossible_. He's stripping away the new, he's reverting him, he's _stealing this from him_! At his sides, Kahl can feel his training weathered fists melting away, disappearing into chubby, soft pink. The cuts and blisters, the rough spots vanishing. That damnable man and his hand! How could he? Kahl was full-grown! They were going to stand as equals! He couldn't let that go, not now, not when he was so close.

One arm shoots out before he's thought the motion through, all instinct and desperation, and he screws his eyes shut at contact.

\---

He breaks it first, stumbling back like there was a knife in his gut and his face boils red, redder than it has any right to be. The monk watches his reaction, his confusion, searching for his eyes under that mop of brown and all Balthasar can do is look down.

They settle into silence and he thinks.

He thinks of how the excited boy had come to show him the monk armor, how he had reacted when he laid a hand on him, how he grabbed at his neck, reached right 'round the back of it, _how he had let him_ , how there'd been no malice, how he'd yanked him towards him and against him. And then he thinks of a single question.

"Why?"

When Balthasar looks at Kahl, finally looks, it's all in letters again. Right there in the eyes he sees a switch flipped on, sees what's being plotted as the seconds tick off and he forgets the question. If there was an escape route, it disappears with a surer pull of his neck and the smuggest goddamn smile he's ever glimpsed.


End file.
